Ballistic

down on a small Vespa scooter, and turned back to him. The boy on the bench rose tentatively; he wondered how Joe had pulled up on the scooter and then crossed the park without Diego noticing. It was like he had just materialized out of thin air.

When Diego arrived at the Vespa, Joe started the engine, motioned for Diego to climb on back, and then they drove off down the street without a word between them.

Court returned the scooter to the shop where Jerry had rented it that afternoon, then took a taxi with Diego back to the hotel where Luz and Elena were staying. The two women were floored by the American’s change of appearance. They both agreed that, with the right clothes, he looked like he could actually be a member of Los Trajes Negros.

Like Diego, the women had made an attempt at a transformation. Luz had dyed her hair red; it did not look natural, but neither did it look out of place for a woman of her age. Elena Gamboa Gonzalez wore a white floral dress that looked new; she’d cut her hair short, into a bob not unlike her sister-in-law Laura’s. She wore big sunglasses and high heels.

But Elena was still pregnant. Court appreciated her going to the trouble to try and disguise herself, but he could not imagine the hit men for the Black Suits ignoring a pregnant lady just because her hair was shorter than that of their target.

Diego and Court collected the two women and had a new taxi take them to a supermarket, where they all climbed into yet another cab that drove them south to a local transit bus stop. When the cab drove away, Gentry led the family up the street a hundred yards, then they turned left down a narrow callejon and arrived at a horridlooking hourly motel.

Sickly prostitutes stood out front, but Gentry led the Gamboas past them and then up a single flight of stairs in the back. He slipped his key in the lock of a tiny room with no windows.

Inside it was dark. Court had forbade talking on the trip through town, so as soon as he closed the door, Elena said, “Why are we here?”

As a response Court flipped on the light to the room. A single bed that sagged in the middle, a threadbare comforter, a backpack lying on top. With his eyes Gentry directed the families to look in the bathroom.

Jerry was tied with telephone cord and strapping tape to the plumbing in the tiny and filthy bathroom; his head on the shit-stained porcelain, and his wounded foot positioned high on the rim of the dingy bathtub.

“What took you so long?” he asked as Gentry looked in on him past the three Mexicans in the doorway.

Court addressed the Gamboas. “We’ve been compromised.”

“Where is Laura?” Elena asked.

He sighed. “The Black Suits have her.” He said it in Spanish so Luz and Diego would understand.

Luz cried out, sat down on the bed, and began to wail.

Elena herself cried. “How?”

“Thank this asshole right here.” He pointed towards the American tied to the toilet.

Elena looked at Pfleger, and Pfleger just turned away from her, gazed at a long centipede crawling across the grimy fake-tile flooring.

“What . . . what are we going to do now?” asked Diego.

“We’re going to get you all into the United States. And then I’ll go and get her back.”

“No! No, I am not leaving without Laura,” said Elena.

“Yes, you are. I need you and the family out of the way.”

“How are we going to get my tia back?” asked Diego.

Court sat on the bed next to Luz. He said, “I am going to make de la Rocha give her back. I am going to make de la Rocha’s life miserable, and I will not stop making his life miserable until he releases Laura. And then when he does . . . I take her, and I leave.”

“You will leave him alive?” asked Diego.

“My only objective is to save Lorita.”

“De la Rocha killed Eduardo,” said Elena.

“I know that, and I would love to make him pay. But I don’t expect that will be possible, so I am going to concentrate on rescuing Laura.”

Elena Gamboa stared long and hard at Court. He did not understand the look she was giving him at first, but slowly it dawned on him. He had said something, conveyed something, given off some sort of emotion about Laura that Elena recognized.

He turned away, but she came to him, took both of his hands, and squeezed them tightly. He kept his eyes on the wall, then down on Pfleger, who was writhing on the tile next to the toilet.

He heard Eddie’s wife sniff back tears. She understood that this was personal now; she had read into Court’s words and actions.

Elena must have recognized she was making him uncomfortable, so she turned away without speaking, sat with her mother-in-law, hugged her deeply; tears dripped down both of their faces. Luz looked up at the man she knew as Jose. “Thank you, Jose. Thank you so much.”

In Spanish he said, “I haven’t even started yet.”

Jerry had spent literally the entire twenty-four-hour bus ride and the next morning in Tijuana working on his plan to get the Gamboas into the United States. He hadn’t quite solidified his scheme before the American killer had taken Pfleger to rent a scooter, then returned him to the motel, tied him to the shitter, and left him alone for hours.

Heartless bastard.

The evening before, on the bus north, Jerry had arranged for a criminal contact in Tijuana to vouch for him to a veteran coyote. The cayote told him he was arranging for a large group of forty pot smugglers to cross into the U.S. near Tecate late in the evening in two days’ time. Jerry was told his group could tag along if they would haul packs of marijuana wrapped in hemp cord during the hike, and Jerry readily agreed. He was then given the exact time and place of the crossing.

Next he used an acquaintance in Nogales who owed him a favor. The man put him in touch with a drug ring working the plaza there. He was told of a tunnel that ran from Nogales over the border into Arizona, and the entire morning in Tijuana he worked his new mobile phone to make contact with the right people in the right places. Finally, after the Gamboas were collected and he was cut free from the toilet by the Gray Man, Jerry Pfleger completed the arrangements with more calls to Nogales and Tucson, and promises to everyone he spoke with.

Promises that were mostly lies.

The lies Jerry Pfleger had told in the past twenty-four hours would have a lot of people out to kill him, of this the American embassy officer had no doubt. His plan would fuck over some of the scummiest, most vengeful, and most dangerous men in northern Mexico, a region known for dangerous men. All these men knew his real name, knew his business associates, and knew where he worked. There would be no going back to business as usual when this ordeal was over.

But Jerry Pfleger was more terrified of the Gray Man. If he somehow survived this ordeal, he would deal with whatever came after. For now he had a job to do.

FORTY-THREE

Court, Jerry, and the Gamboas drove a stolen Ford Lobo truck east through the morning, arriving at Nogales before noon. There they checked into a motel that was hardly any better than the one they’d left in TJ.

They sat around all afternoon, ate, talked. The Gamboas prayed, and Court and Jerry picked at their raw and red wounds, waiting for nightfall.

Jerry’s plan was all about his own preservation. He would tip off the DEA at the last minute to the invasion of pot smugglers near Tecate, he would insinuate heroin was being smuggled along with the pot, and he would exaggerate the number of mules from forty to one hundred.